In a prior art electroinductive hardening devices of the kind specified have been used for many years. Problems occur if not always workpieces of the same length, but of different lengths must be hardened. Since the edges of the workpieces must remain unhardened, to reduce the risk of shelling, the inductors must be precisely adapted to the length of the workpiece to be hardened. When workpieces of different lengths were hardened, therefore, the inductors had to be interchanged and an inductor used which corresponded to the length of the workpiece to be hardened. This procedure means that a correspondingly large number of inductors must be kept in stock and moreover the changeover time is lost to production.
It is an object of the invention to provide a device for the electroinductive surface hardening of workpieces which shortens the changeover time for the adaptation of the inductors to the particular length of the workpiece to be hardened and more particularly obviates any interchange of inductors and the loss of time resulting therefrom.